When Fates Collide
by Mysterious Midnight
Summary: *The Sequel to Surrender to Fate!* It has been a year and a half since Prue died and six months since Corrine, Melinda, Katelyn and Rebecca defeated Carsaeus with Cole's help. The girls have settled into life as witches. Suddenly, two young men appear in the Manor, claiming to be Piper's sons. Who are they? Are they telling the truth? Can the Power of Four put things right?
1. Life Goes On

A/N: Hey guys! I know this is long-awaited, but it's finally here! The sequel to Surrender to Fate!

I hope you guys enjoy! I don't have many chapters written yet and I have NO clue where this is going, so bear with me!

Read, review, enjoy!

...

"KATELYN!"

Katelyn cringed, trying to sneak down the stairs and out the front door before Corrine caught up to her. But just as she cleared the landing, Corrine grabbed her by the arm and spun her around, with Melinda and Rebecca hurrying down the stairs after her.

"Katelyn," Corrine seethed, "your spell was supposed to make the authorities and the outside world believe we had a legal guardian looking after us."

"Well..." Katelyn said slowly, keeping her tone light and cheerful, "That's what it did, didn't it?"

Corrine glared at her cousin, crossing her arms. "No. The spell aged us all! By, I don't know, about five years! That's not the same thing!"

"Yes, but, this works out even better, doesn't it?" Katelyn asked, attempting to defend herself and her spell-gone-awry.

It had been a year and a half since Prue's death, and roughly six months since the cousins had defeated Carsaeus with Cole's help. They had managed to cover their tracks for a long time, convincing anyone who asked that Piper, Phoebe, and Paige were simply not home, or were on vacation, or were just taking a shower and would call back – Anything that convinced friends and neighbors to leave them alone.

But the excuses were wearing thin; P3 was in ruins without Piper, and her staff was beginning to become suspicious. And Bay View Social Services had, ultimately, fired Paige, despite Rebecca's pleading and protesting.

The nail in the coffin came when the cops and social services showed up, demanding to know why Melinda, Katelyn, and Rebecca was missing so much school, and why their parents hadn't informed the school of any of the absences. Corrine had tried to explain that she was over eighteen, and caring for her siblings in the absence of their legal guardians. She had explained that they were out of town helping a sick relative.

Unfortunately, that excuse did not fly with the authorities, and they had threatened to take Rebecca away to foster care if Paige did not show up and explain her whereabouts.

The cousins had debated using magic to impersonate Paige; however, they realized that that would only work so many times, for so many things. Instead, they decided they needed a more permanent solution. So, using a spell to trick the world into thinking they had a legal guardian was their solution.

But, as could happen sometimes with magic, the spell had – clearly – gone awry.

"How could this possibly have worked out better?" Corrine demanded, glaring at Katelyn.

"I mean, this means we are all old enough to not need a guardian. And, cool bonus?" Katelyn dug into her bag and pulled out a California Driver's license, grinning. "I have legal I.D. now!"

Melinda rolled her eyes. "Katelyn, spell or no spell, you are 18-years-old and no where near 21."

"Nope," Katelyn agreed. "I'm 23, according to this," she said, pointing at the I.D. "And, cousin, that means you are, too. And that means you're old enough to take over P3, if you want, so it doesn't end up closing up and dying."

Melinda fell silent, contemplating this possibility. She really didn't want to see P3 fall to the wayside. Piper had worked so hard to get P3 up and running, it didn't seem fair to let it fall into disrepair.

Katelyn grinned, knowing she had won Melinda over.

"So..." Rebecca questioned, frowning in thought. "Does this mean I don't need to finish high school?"

"Nope!" Katelyn proclaimed, smirking. "I'm pretty sure if you check your room, you'll see a high school diploma hanging on your wall. I'm pretty sure all four of us have one. College degrees, too." She paused, frowning at Rebecca. "Well, you probably don't have a college degree, since you're only 21-years-old. But no more high school, at least!"

Rebecca nodded appreciatively. "Okay... I can live with that. Hey, if anyone asks, I can say I decided to take some time off before going to college..."

Corrine placed a hand to her forehead, trying with great difficulty to keep her breathing steady.

"This is crazy!" she cried, throwing her hands up. "We are not all in our 20's. We're all still in our teens... I just... This is insane!"

Melinda sighed. "Cor... What choice do we have? We can't let the authorities know the truth. We can't let Rebecca be placed in foster care. We have to stick together."

Corrine finally sighed, shaking her head. "Okay, fine. But listen closely." She paused, eyeing each of her cousins carefully until she knew she had their undying attention. "We may be 24, 23, 23, and 21 to the world," she said calmly, rattling off their new ages respectively, "But in truth, we're still 19, 18, 18, and 16. So let's not abuse that, okay? Seriously, if I find any of you drinking when you shouldn't be..."

"Oh, come on Corrine," Katelyn whined. "We've got to play the part. And honestly, the spell _aged _use. In mind, body, and spirit. We are, for all intents and purposes, all in our 20's and either done with or in college. You can't tell me that if we go on dates or business meetings, we can't drink. And seriously, what about you? I know you've snuck drinks before, and I never even ratted you out to Prue. So, seriously... No drinks?"

"And what about driving?" Rebecca asked, her face scrunching in confusion. "Our I.D. say we're all old enough to drive but I've never operated a vehicle before..."

"We'll teach you," Katelyn said with a shrug. "No biggie, right? We each have a car, since technically we all inherited our mothers cars."

Corrine groaned, covering her eyes with her hands. "Oh, man... I need a drink!"

Katelyn grinned. "See?"

Corrine's steely gaze landed on Katelyn and, almost inaudibly, she growled.

Katelyn' eyes widened and she put her hands up defensively. "Sorry, sorry."

"Okay, fine," Corrine finally relented. "But, we are so setting up sound ground rules."

"I can live with that," Katelyn agreed quickly. Rebecca nodded eagerly.

Melinda shrugged. "Our lives can't get much crazier, so, sure, why not."

"Mel, seriously," Katelyn warned. "Never say those words again. Because this is us we're talking about."

Melinda winced. "Yeah, good point."

"I still don't know how we're going to explain the whole parental absence..." Rebecca said nervously.

At this, the cousins fell silent, contemplating this unfortunate loophole in their plan.

"What if..." Rebecca began, pausing to gather her thoughts. "What if we do another spell... One that convinces the world that our mother's died two years ago? I know there's a chance that one could go awry, too, but it would be better than lying. It's the closest thing to the truth."

Corrine, Melinda, and Katelyn all nodded, looking solemn. An unspoken look passed between them, as they had the same thought: Prue had died publicly. She'd had a funeral and a death announcement, so that was one less death they had to fake. They just needed to do the spell for Piper, Phoebe, and Paige.

"Okay, let's do it," Corrine finally said. "We'll use a Power of Four spell. And maybe call upon the matriarchs of the Halliwell line. Maybe those elements will strengthen it, keep it from going sour on us."

"And we need very, very specific wording," Katelyn added.

Nodding in agreement, the cousins, once again, made their way upstairs to the attic and the Book of Shadows.


	2. Intruders

A/N: Heyyy guys. I'm sorry for the delay.. I've been very busy with work and I had some writers block.

But here's chapter two!

CharmedOpal: I know! I'm so glad to finally be working on it :)

Daicy: I did! I loved it and it works so perfectly! Thanks so much for the idea!

GirlOnFire33: Eep. Sorry I didn't update sooner :( Glad you're enjoying so far!

Read, enjoy and kindly review!

...

The cousins trudged down the attic stairs, their steps heavy. It didn't feel good having to do a spell to fake the very real deaths of their family. But that's exactly what they had to do, in order to move forward without unwanted questions.

"Okay," Melinda mumbled, as they hit the second-floor landing. "Now that we've gotten that morbid piece of business out of the way, I think I should go down to P3 and... See what's left."

"I should go check out 415," Corrine agreed. "Maybe I can take over Prue's old job. It would give us more income, especially with our biggest money-maker temporarily out of commission," she said, with a sympathetic shrug to Melinda.

"Can I come to P3?" Rebecca asked eagerly. "Since I'm technically legal... I won't drink, I swear," she said quickly, at Corrine's glare. "I just want to check it out."

Corrine sighed, but Melinda nodded. "I really don't want to go alone, anyway."

Corrine, Melinda, and Rebecca turned to Katelyn, who had been silent so far.

The sudden, intense attention startled Katelyn from her own thoughts. She glanced at her cousins, wide-eyed. She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it quickly. Suddenly, her throat felt dry. She coughed, shrugging.

"I'm not ready to go to the newspaper..." She finally admitted, avoiding eye contact. "I'll just hold down the fort here, okay?"

Corrine, Melinda and Rebecca exchanged understanding glances.

"It's okay, Kat. You don't have to explain or defend yourself. We get it," Melinda said gently. "We'll all check in often, okay?"

Katelyn nodded, still avoiding eye contact.

"And Melinda and I are just an orb away if you need us," Rebecca reminded her. "Well, Melinda's an orb away," she added dryly. "I'll... work on it."

Time had not improved Rebecca's powers. With each day that went by, the cousins were more and more convinced that Carsaeus had not been lying: For Rebecca, gaining full control of her powers would mean embracing her demonic nature, something she wasn't ready for yet.

Katelyn mumbled a thanks before escaping to her room.

Corrine, Melinda and Rebecca exchanged one more worried glance before making their way downstairs and heading out.

...

"Okay, we have some checks to write and some phone calls to make, people," Melinda said, clapping her hands encouragingly. "Let's get moving."

When Melinda arrived at P3, the club was empty, dirty, and in desperate need of some TLC. She set Rebecca to work on cleaning while she called in the main staff for an emergency meeting.

She had done her best to express her authority, though many of them still saw her as Piper's little girl. But in the end, she divided up the tasks and felt confident the club would be up and running in no time.

After about a half hour, she escaped o the office to see if Piper had left anything regarding band booking. But the second she walked into the office – which hadn't been touched since Piper's death – she froze.

The office had all of Piper's touches. There were pictures of her with Prue and Phoebe, as well as pictures of her with all four cousins– Melinda most of all. One of Piper's coats was thrown over the back of her chair. Old band posters, as well as pictures of Piper with bands she had booked, decorated the wall behind her desk.

Melinda felt her breathing pick up and tears sting her eyes. With everything that had happened following the death of the Charmed Ones, the cousins hadn't really had time to mourn their mothers. And being back in P3 for the first time hit Melinda really hard.

She was so absorbed in her grief that she didn't hear the small knock on the office door.

"Hey, so I cleaned the bar and the stage. I did some dusting and moping, but not all of..." Rebecca fell silent, frowning. "Hey, you okay?"

Melinda sniffled once but nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just... All the dust, you know? Just got dust in my eye."

Rebecca tilted her head to the side, questioningly. "Mel..."

"I'm fine," she insisted. "All good. I was just checking into the band list. So, I'm good."

Rebecca sighed but nodded. If Melinda didn't want to talk about it, Rebecca knew she couldn't force it. "But, I'm here if... you get more dust in your eyes. Okay?"

Melinda laughed and nodded. "Sounds great."

Rebecca smiled softly. "I'll be out there if you need me." She hesitated once, staring at Melinda for a minute before walking out.

...

Katelyn waited until she was sure everyone had left before making her way out of her room and downstairs. She didn't want to talk about what had happened in the last year and a half. She didn't want to go to the Bay View Mirror just yet. She couldn't face Elise and all the staff.

Instead, she just wanted to mope around a little bit. She made up some comfort food and lounged in front of the TV, flipping aimlessly from one channel to another.

At some point, she fell asleep. And when she woke up, it was because she heard voices in the other room – voices that didn't belong to Corrine, Melinda, or Rebecca.

Cautiously, quietly, Katelyn rose from the couch, tip-toeing in the direction of the voices.

"This place is so different," a male voice said, sounding surprised. "I know we're in the past and that makes sense, but should things be _this_ different?"

"We're in the past, dude," a second male voice, laced with sarcasm, said. "Trust me, I've traveled to the past more than you. And even I haven't gone this far back before."

"Okay," the first male voice said, sounding frustrated. "But, some of the things I'm seeing don't even make sense."

Katelyn frowned, edging closer to the wall that separated her from the sunroom. She peered in, keeping herself out of eyesight of whoever was in there.

"I mean, maybe it makes sense to them," the second male spoke. He was tall and thin with short, brown hair that was slightly on the long side. He looked like the kind of person who had a perpetual scowl on his face.

The other man, whom Katelyn could only assume the first voice belonged to, rolled his eyes. He had short brown hair

"I know," he replied dryly. "I'm not totally stupid. But doesn't something just seem... Off?"

They were silent for a long time. Katelyn studied them closely. They didn't seem like demons, and it was as though they had been to the Manor before, and knew it well. She frowned in thought, wondering if these were friends of any of her cousins, or if maybe they had known the Charmed Ones.

"Yeah..." the second man remarked, looking confused now. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said grudgingly.

"Ha!" the first man said, grinning. "I knew you'd have to admit it at some point."

The second man shook his head, scowling. "Don't even, dude."

Katelyn shook her head, trying to back up and away. She needed to call for Melinda or Rebecca. But as she was backing up, her foot caught on the rug and she went staggering backwards, landing hard on her butt with a yelp.

"Did you hear that?" the first man asked.

"I'm not deaf," the other man said sharply, but there was humor in his voice.

Footsteps echoed in the sunroom, and Katelyn knew they were only feet away from her. Her eyes widened in horror as she scrambled to her feet. She had barely regained her balance when two shadows loomed before her.


End file.
